Tales from the Pit
by DragonMaster65
Summary: A series of prompt-fill ficlets. No unifying theme overall beyond the world of Divergent, though most will either star or feature Tris. Prompts vary from fluff to angst. They're all based on what I'm sent, so feel free to request what you like! Backlog is complete. [Eric x Tris]
1. Ripples

**A series of prompt-fill drabbles. No unifying theme overall beyond the world of Divergent, though most will either star or feature Tris. Eris as a relationship is also featured. These have been up on my blog as well as AO3 and I decided to finally move them over to here as well. I'll probably post one a day until I'm caught up.**

 **Prompts vary from fluff to angst. They're all based on what I'm sent, so feel free to request what you like in the reviews section or by sending me an ask on my Tumblr.**

 **Also feel free to check out my other Divergent pieces.**

* * *

 **Nimadge prompted:** **Tris, after a couple of years in Leadership looking at the new initiates.**

* * *

 **Ripples**

I have to leave the office. I have to get up, move my legs, and exit this tiny room. But my feet feel frozen to the ground, my arms to the desk, my back to the chair. Looking back at me are the faces of the next generation. The next line of defense against anything that gets thrown our way.

The old guard was gone. Stripped of their ranks and either rehabilitated through work or exiled from the city. Dauntless was a fraction of its former glory and it was up to me to decide if these new initiates have what it takes to belong.

My heart is in my throat as I scan the names. A lot of familiar faces stare back at me from Dauntless, following in their parents' footsteps to join the ranks of the brave and the bold. Not everyone stayed, though. There's a noticeable gap in the "K" section where the Kennedy twins would have been. A gap-toothed Abnegation boy and a wide-shouldered Candor girl came up next.

I lingered on the boy's file, scanning his listed grades and aptitude test result. _Abnegation._ My stomach dropped even lower. Would he regret his decision? Would he be able to adapt?

I cringed as I sorted the list by prior faction. Six Erudite, five Candor, a pair of Amity, and another whopping five Abnegation. Those final listings were my greatest worry. Were they simply following in the footsteps of a fool who had wandered into the lion's den?

Wandered in and become one of the beasts.

Sighing, my eyes flicked over to the clock on the wall. I was out of time to waste. It was my turn to greet them, to tell them the stakes. Let them know it took more than a few drops of blood to survive.


	2. Question of the Hour

**Athenrys prompted: Tris and Richards: the BFF proposal AKA confirming their friendship level**

* * *

 **Question of the Hour**

I rapped my knuckles on the bartop, silently praying that Greg would come back from MCing whatever trivia event was on the docket tonight and take over for the current, very green bartender. Anything that wasn't a beer pull took ages. The girl bubbled over to me, her hands twisting her towel into knots.

"Two boilermakers. That's a shot of whiskey and a beer," I ordered. I was worried that even that would be too complicated for her. She needed more training, poor thing. Three long, long minutes later and I was finally back at the table with Richards. The driver and I had ended up drinking together by accident several weeks back and it just morphed into a regular thing. We liked the same drinks and neither of us pushed if the other didn't feel like talking.

Richards took his drink from me, clinking the glasses together. "Now the night can actually get rolling," he cheered. I laughed and downed a good portion of the drink. Beer wasn't my favorite thing but the whiskey made it pretty good. The shot also helped dull the stress of the day, letting me actually relax with my friend.

"We're friends, right?" I blurted the thought out before it knocked around in the back of my head for the next week.

Richards cocked his head, measuring me up behind the rim of his pint glass. "You're a little scrawny, got a knack for self destruction, and are climbing the ranks like a goddamn rocket," he drawled finally. "You're exactly the kind of person I'd love to be friends with."

I grinned at that, punching him in the arm across the tiny table. "Well that's good. You're scrawny, too, you know," I retorted.

He lifted a shoulder. "Why do you think we get along so well? You're just like me, though you have _horrendous_ taste in men. Seriously, you thought dating your trainer was a good idea?" Richards scoffed. I didn't take it to heart. His gruff attitude hid a kernel of genuine concern.

"Alright, alright," I said, waving away the topic.

The speakers hissed and cracked as Greg finally turned on the system. I peered over my shoulder in mild curiosity at the empty game board and back lit chairs marked for contestants.

"What's the thing tonight?" I asked. Rich's face broke into a wide smile.

"They call it the honeymoon game. You'll love it. Play with me?"

I eyed him. Was he crazy? I knew he was with Kyle and I was… well I wasn't with him. "What kind of game _is_ it?" I pressed, refusing to give even the ghost of an answer. Greg was now trawling the bar looking for participants. I could hear him over the speakers.

Richards waved him over. "You have to guess what your partner would answer for the question. Come one, _friend_ ," he teased. "This is how you become besties."

The whiskey had to be the reason that I took the word "bestie" seriously in any capacity at all.


	3. Spotter

**Diamondsaregold prompted:** **I love jealous Eric. Eric getting all grumpy and emo and shit when he sees Tris with someone else. I also LOVE reading about them training together, like the running/fight scenes in Prove It.**

* * *

 **Spotter**

I scratched at my nose before easing back into the crook of my rifle. It was hot. I was sweating. Lexi was taking forever to tell me my next target. "Uhmm," she murmured for the dozenth time. "Give me a minute."

This was the pattern of the day. Set up in the scout position. Wait for Lexi to line up the target in the spotting scope. Wait some more for her to check her reference cards. Consider making the shot with my own damn math. Work out the cramp in my hands. Finally get to make the shot. Rinse, repeat. We were assigned eighteen targets to get to today. It wasn't happening.

"Lex, I know you're a perfectionist, but this is ridiculous," I growled. She huffed and tucked her hair behind her ear. This was hair tuck number five within the past few minutes. Minutes.

The scope finally went back to her eyeline. "Fifty yards on a decline," Lexi stated. I had enough to make the shot. This was intended to be a team training exercise but it was worth any bitching from Lexi to just get the hell home.

Exhaling, I pulled the trigger and watched the target dummy get launched from the post it was tied to. I liked my load heavy, what can I say? A grin on my face, I pushed off the ground to stand up once again. "Sun's setting. Do you want to just call it?" I wanted to make the suggestion in a way that Lexi would be the one making the actual decision. It wasn't my fault we had only gotten through half the circuit.

She shrugged one shoulder. Good enough.

* * *

I had expected to get chewed out by Corporal Melanie. The dressing down was relatively fast and painless; most of her comments were directed at Lexi for not having studied enough before agreeing to try the circuit. Hefting my rifle over my shoulder, I started off towards the armory to check it back in. Until I passed all levels of sniper training, I wasn't authorized to requisition my own even from the surplus store.

I was nice enough to take Lexi's spotting scope though. This was probably not my best call as mid-trek to the armory, Eric tracked me down. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked. From the mad twinkle in his eye, I didn't have to guess what kind of mood he was in. Or what he was about to suggest.

The scope passed from my hands to his waiting ones and off we went. Nine more training dummies were waiting for their chance to be blown to bits. Eric looped one arm through the rail on the top of the train car and the other around my waist. With the sun setting through the open doorway, all of Chicago was laid out before us. I sighed and leaned my head back onto Eric's shoulder. "You never let me have a night off."

He chuckled, squeezing my waist for a moment. "I can't be accused of playing favorites, so that means you can't get away with anything. Even when you get stuck with a shitty spotter. But I can at least make all the extra training more entertaining. You deserve a partner who knows what they're doing," he murmured into my ear.

"That hardly seems fair," I complained. "I happen to be dating a Leader so I have to work all the damn time?"

"I'll let you in on a secret: being a Leader means doing that anyways. The more you get used to it, the less you'll have to adjust once you get the job." He was always doing that - alluding that I was destined for the same position he held.

I twisted around - adjusting my rifle to stop it from smacking into my calf - and rested both arms around his neck. With the doorway behind me, Eric was the only thing keeping me from tumbling out into the abyss. "You're going to give me an ego the size of Erudite if you keep talking like that," I teased.

Eric squinted for a moment. "Going to?"

* * *

 **A/N: A casual reminder to check my profile for links and information about review responses and updating queues.**


	4. How to Train Your Radioactive Lizard

**Athenrys prompted: I accidentally a dragon**

* * *

 **How to Train Your Radioactive Flying Lizard Pet** ** _Or, Goddammit Chicago, How Are Parts of You So Fucked Up 200 Years Later?_**

"Lu-lu, no," I hissed. I had to keep my voice down. If I wasn't careful, I would wake–

Eric groaned from the room next door. I had about twenty seconds before he would roll off the bed and stumble into the bathroom where he would surely see our new… friend. Dear god, I had to work fast. Rolling up my sleeves, I grabbed Lucy under her front legs and flinched away from her flailing limbs. "Shh shh shh," I cooed. "It's _fine_ , you're _fine_!" Nope. No way was I sneaking her out now. The tiny girl was making too much noise.

"Are you sure I'm fine? My head disagrees," Eric's muffled voice drifted into the bathroom.

I sat down and tried once again to let Lucy settle into my lap. It worked for the young puppies in the kennel, why wouldn't it work on another small animal? "I'm sure you're fine," I grumbled in response to my half-asleep boyfriend.

A claw snagged on my forearm and I winced in pain. Okay, so that was worse than the kennel pups. I rubbed at the cut and quietly disciplined Lucy with a poke on the nose. The intent wasn't quite understood as she nipped at my finger instead. Tiny needle-like teeth dug in and my eyes watered immediately. She tumbled out from my lap and clambered back into the tub, curling up to watch me with her bright, green eyes.

"Uhm, Tris?" Here goes. "Why is there a lizard in the tub?"

I slowly turned to look back at my boyfriend. There wasn't really an excuse that I could give to avoid the fact that I'd brought this creature into our shared space. "She looked lonely?" I offered. Maybe if I smiled wide enough, it would be fine.

Lucy sat up and sniffed in Eric's direction, intent upon this new stranger. Her dull scales began to shimmer and shift in the light. They had seemed to me a forest green color but now they took on a dusky rose glimmer. "Uhhh," Eric paused, pointing down at the lizard. "That's not normal."

My own eyes were wide in amazement. He wasn't wrong; lizards don't typically change colors willy-nilly. Still, Lucy _seemed_ perfectly healthy as she craned her long neck to nuzzle against my knee. "I'm keeping her," I insisted.

Eric blanched, but he didn't outright protest. Success.


	5. Prepwork

**Trashaddendum prompted: Prepping for Training**

 **This is from Eric's POV, which was a fun exercise prior to writing Pigment! I wanted to see how I liked his "voice."**

* * *

 **Prepwork**

There's something about Initiation that will always make me nervous. Not in the hands-shaking, knees-knocking kind of way that used to come over me for Mid-Level presentations. It sits in my stomach, turning my mood just as sour as the acid that feels like it's churning.

It's how similar these kids faces look to my own. Or at least, to my old face. Back before putting on a show of confidence wasn't second nature. I look over the files of this year's fifteen-year-olds and I see uncertainty. Sure, there are those where it's readily apparent they're not venturing from mommy-dearest. But their eyes show that they've made up their minds, even if they haven't realized it consciously yet.

The ones who stare out from the photographs without the ghost of direction though, they're the ones who unsettle me. Once they walk up to that bowl and draw blood, they've made a decision that will follow them for the rest of their lives. They will choose whatever Faction their current whim tells them they'd belong in and it becomes my responsibility to determine if they belong. I am the gatekeeper to a future of Faction loyalty.

Four and Lauren have it easy. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They give tools to these kids; I think of them as kids even though they're only two freaking years younger than me. I have to break them down and decide if what they've learned to do with those tools is good enough to fit in. It isn't about meeting some quota of toughness. Being able to beat and break another person is a physical expectation for Dauntless. It's up to me to see past that raw skill and determine if they're able to perform without breaking themself.

I worry about the gravity of the mantle that I've taken upon myself, about whether I'm really the guy who should be making that judgement call when I've only just realized what it means to be Dauntless. But it's also for the best, I think, that I'm the one making that last call. Max and Regina, they've been down in the trenches of running the Faction for so long now, long enough to have forgotten what it was like to first earn their stripes to belong in the first place. I can still remember the bite of the needle on my skin that short, short year ago.

I wasn't nervous that night. My knuckles rub against the side of my neck, unconsciously moving as I draw from that well of confidence once again. Whoever finds their way into my crew of hopefuls is going to have to impress a Dauntless Leader. I have to fill that role, nerves or not.


	6. Partners in Crime

**Anon prompted: Eris, both of them are in Erudite**

* * *

 **Partners in Crime**

The day once again started with a glaring contest. Neither wanted to be the first to budge, steely stares locked in eternal combat, awaiting the other to flinch first.

"I'm not doing it."

Tris smirked. He'd spoken first, regardless of how arrogant his statement was. It would only be a short amount of time before he'd fold. "If that's what makes you happy, keep thinking that."

He shifted on the stool, steepling his fingers as he shifted his elbows on the lab bench. "Don't women have nicer handwriting?"

Tris raised an eyebrow. The message was clear enough and Eric quickly took back his comment. He cracked under her renewed glare, taking the notebook and opening it to the latest page. "Perfect. Now we can actually get started on research," Tris chirped, hopping from her stool to make her way over to the cabinet. Their samples weren't going to run themselves.


	7. Tears and Treats

**Anon prompted: "It's 3AM and I see you walking home with a cake and crying"**

* * *

 **Tears and Treats**

When I spotted him walking up the hall towards our apartment, I could immediately see the toil that today had wrought. Richards had given me a heads up when he logged back in with faction security. I stepped away from the door and waited for Eric to punch the code into the lock. He swept inside, a small, square container tucked under his arm.

"Everything alright?" I asked. He didn't lean into my touch when I pressed a hand onto his shoulder. His head wasn't here, not yet. Eric's eyes watered and I saw how red his cheeks were.

I took the package from his grip and placed it on the table so that I could properly wrap my arms around his torso. "You're a good son," I murmured. He pressed his face into the crook of my shoulder. When he finally let go of me, my shirt was damp.

"C'mon," Eric said finally. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat to properly speak. "He wouldn't've wanted the cake to go to waste. It's vanilla, his favorite."


	8. K&R vs the Evil Vending Machine

**Athenrys prompted: Evil Vending Machine**

 **Kyle and Richards are my two Dauntless OCs seen in various fics such as Prove It, All Bets are Off, and Countdown to Christmas.**

* * *

 **Richards & Kyle Vs the Evil Vending Machine**

K: "Rich, if it didn't give you a granola bar, it's probably because someone messed up loading it."

R: "Every time though? Every single time that I punch in my Point account, it refuses to drop?"

K: "I think it knows that you shouldn't be wasting Points on shitty pre-made food."

R: "…."

T: "Hey guys? What happened to keeping the comm lines clear?"

K: "Sorry, Tris."

R: "He really isn't."

K: "You know, you saying shit like that is why I haven't asked Brandon to remove that bug in the machine's code."

R: "I knew it wasn't a fucking fluke."

T: "Can you please argue about this later?"


	9. Patient

**Nimadge prompted: sick!Eric and reluctantly helping Tris**

* * *

 **Patient**

Sniff.

Sniff-sniff.

I ground my teeth and slowly counted to ten. Four, five, six, sev- Sniff.

"Will you please get a handkerchief? Or throw yourself off the roof? Either works, thank you," I snarled.

Eric glowered at me before deliberately rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. "I will when you agree that it's too fucking cold to be working outside," he countered.

I rounded on him and pulled a piece of scrap cloth from his front vest pocket. "It's only October."

"It's forty degrees with windchill." Sniff.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. I finished my countdown before shoving the make-shift handkerchief into his palm. "We have to deal with the weather if we're called in to a situation. Maybe if you wore sleeves you wouldn't be sick."

He scoffed. The effect was lessened by the interrupting sneeze and follow-up nose blowing. "It's only October," he parroted my words back at me. "Should still be able to wear my vest without this sneezing bullshit."

The radio at my belt squawked. "I know, I know," I said quickly. "Now shut up and go get the jacket Richards brought out for you. He just pulled up."

Eric sighed in relief. "You know telling a Leader what to do isn't allowed, right?"

I lifted up onto my tip-toes and planted a kiss on his cheek. "What can I say? I'm a rebel."


	10. Breakfast of Champions

**Cssardonic: eating in the same diner every morning and the waitress ALWAYS mixes up our orders so why don't we just sit at the same table to save her the trouble**

* * *

 **Breakfast of Champions**

"Eggs and hash browns, no toast," Christina chirped cheerfully, setting the plate down in front of me. I lifted a hand to my head and tried to restain my laugh. I wasn't successful.

"That's the other guy's order," I said, pointing behind me with my thumb. I had once, maybe twice, ordered something similar to eggs and hash browns. Yet Christina still brought me the wrong ticket every damn day.

She always apologized, like she was now, and promised to get it right. I waved it away and returned to my iPad to try to remember which paragraph I had been on.

The guy at the table behind me greeted Christina and I heard him chuckle as well. My concentration slipped at the sound and I had to re-read my paragraph for the third time. Dammit. I saw someone step in front of my table once again and prepared to once again remind Christina that I was fine with my corn beef hash on the side.

Mr. Eggs and Hash Browns stood there instead, a wry smile on his face. "You know they're going to bring me your food again anyways, so I figured I'd make it easier on them. Mind if I sit with you?" he asked, tipping his head to the empty bench across from me.

I blinked, taking in the fact that this was happening. We had suffered for so long and only now did either of us think about this painfully obvious answer? He looked at me expectantly, head still tilted. His eggs were still steaming slightly and that was the detail that made me realize I had to speak.

"Y-yeah, go for it," I stammared. My feet were on the seat across from me and I hurried to put my boots back on the ground where they belonged. "I'm Tris, by the way," I said as he sat down across from me.

"Cool name, Tris. I'm Eric," he replied. He reached behind him to steal a roll of silverware from the other table. "You can keep reading if you want. I didn't realize I was interrupting until I had already opened my mouth."

My mouth twitched in a smile at the offer. "It was a boring article anyway," I said, clicking the screen off. "Besides, how can I ignore someone who calls my name 'cool' instead of 'weird' or 'new age?'"


	11. Breakroom Blues

**Trashaddendum prompted: Someone versus an appliance in the common breakroom.**

* * *

 **Breakroom Blues**

"Do you want me to call Richards?"

Eric glowered up at me, grease smeared on his cheek and hands. "Absolutely not," he growled.

I lifted a shoulder, unaffected by his foul mood. He had been playing around with the coffee maker for the past ten minutes, taking apart the appliance piece by piece. It was a shadow of its former self, a victim of Eric's screwdriver and insistence that he knew how to fix the drip system. I perched on the counter next to the debris, drawing up a requisition form for a new one - or rather, new to us since everything was secondhand most of the time.

Kyle would have a field day with getting Candor's financial gremlins to sign off on the "non-essential" appliance. If they had spent any mornings with Eric or Veronica pre-coffee, they might change their mind about how essential a functional coffee maker was.

"Anything I can do to help besides sit here?" I asked. A plastic piece snapped as Eric over-tightened one of the screws.

He fumed under his breath and threw his hands up in the air. "Fucking hell, why is everything so complicated?" Eric snarled. I slid off the counter and tugged the screwdriver out of his hand.

Resisting the urge to laugh - that would only set him off more - I hip checked him gently until he moved in front of the fridge. "Now it's your turn to watch and learn," I teased. Most of the other pieces were still in tact. I could coax the broken piece into place with the other intact screw holes. Once the water reservoir was repaired, I could attack the actual brewing part where I suspected the issue actually was.

Eric warned me that he'd already tried that part and I gave him a withering glance. "You're going to do that Divergent thing where you can, like, magically tell what's wrong, aren't you," he groaned.

Shaking my head, I stabbed the tiniest screwdriver in the kit around the bottom of the drip system. Crunch, crunch. "That's not how it works and you know that. You just didn't look in the right spot," I retorted.

"Sure feels like it's magic," he muttered, not quite under his breath. I could feel what plastic felt like with the metal probe and where there was something foreign. The screwdriver clinked as I threw it into the toolkit. Chewing on my lip, I flipped the whole coffeemaker over and shook it. Coffee grounds and a loose washer fell onto the countertop.

Giving it another hard shake, I watched a solid chunk of brown _something_ fall from where I'd been probing. "Success," I cheered.

Eric leaned against the fridge, skepticism still splayed out on his face. "I'll believe it when I see it, Prior," he said. My response of sticking my tongue out at him wasn't mature, but it certainly felt warranted. A few more minutes of reassembly and securing the washer where it was supposed to be was all it took to have the counter clear and the coffeemaker in one piece.

I opened the cabinet overhead and jumped slightly to grab the coffee filters. Eric smirked at that and I made full eye contact with him while reaching over him to get the coffee can on top of the fridge. "If its so funny that I'm so short, you can at least offer to help get things," I said.

He lifted one shoulder, still smirking. "You're a tough girl. If you need help, just ask. Otherwise, I've learned to stay out of your way," he said.

The coffeemaker gurgled as I plugged it back in and filled the water reservoir. Eric expressed one final question of "You think that's all it needed?" I stared pointedly at him until it finished cycling. Steaming hot coffee hissed as it dripped and then flowed perfectly into the mug I'd placed underneath it.

"See, we didn't need Richards," he muttered, taking the mug. I patted the top of his hand and set about putting the toolkit back under the sink.

"That's because you had me," I retorted.

His head dipped down and he planted a kiss on my cheek. "Thank God for that."


	12. Sometimes You're a Mistake

**Unprompted.**

* * *

 **Sometimes You're a Mistake and Others You're Just Taking**

"What made you so damn special that you got handed the position of Leader?" My tone comes out biting and sharp.

Eric snarls and slams his fist on the bench he's seated on. "I wasn't _handed_ anything," he retorts.

"I heard Four's testimony today." There is blood in the air and iron on my tongue. _This wasn't how it was supposed to be._ I don't bother to wait for his excuse.

"You reported Amar and him for being Divergent, didn't you? Even back then you were just Jeanine's lapdog, a slave to their ideals on purity and _compliance,_ " I say. My voice has risen to practically a shout. It's easier to be like this, inflamed with fury and malice. It burns at the weak, tender part of me that had opened up and dared to care for the man bound in chains in front of me.

Eric tries to stand up, but the bindings around his ankles keep him from coming close to me. For once, I have the power. I can just walk away. "Tris, that was two years ago," he pleads.

"And? Is that supposed to make it alright? You still reaped the rewards for your actions and sure as hell sank easily into the rank and file. I bet you helped plan the attack on Abnegation," I hiss. "I bet you enjoyed it, seeing us storm down the selfless."

He can't step any closer, but that doesn't stop him from leaning in close to my face. "I believed in something that was bigger than me and it made sense," Eric says. "For a time, I had an identity and power. I spent months and years in Erudite hearing how people like me would change the city _for the better_. People who looked for monsters like you."

I pull myself as tall as I can be next to his craned posture. "You would love for me to be a monster like you, wouldn't you?" It's a bitter, low blow.

"My _dear_ ," he spits, "it would have changed the world if you were like me. But you weren't. You were a spitfire girl who wanted to blend in and do the same thing that I did." I laugh at that. There is no joy in this tiny, tight room we are crammed in. It's just too ridiculous that I would want what he did.

He struggles against the manacles and they cut red, angry creases into his wrist as he reaches out. Eric's finger jabs against my collarbone once, twice, before returning to his waistline. "We both wanted to get rid of the weed that was strangling this city and dragging it into ruin. I was just fighting the wrong enemy," Eric insists.

"You don't say," I drawl. My mouth stays in a snarl, teeth bared.

"I was _wrong_. And I hated it. I resented it for weeks as I got reports of your sim times, of how well you worked with the rest of the faction. I held my tongue and didn't report you. Did you know that? I could have had you tested on the first day of phase two but I _didn't_. I did nothing for so long. Fuck, I resented the fact that I couldn't hate you, Tris. You did everything right, and when it came time for the final push on Abnegations, all that I could do was double down on doing what I had been told was right."

I hate the way that his voice broke when he said my name. How his damn proud face crumbled to abject shame.

I hate how the flames inside of me leap for joy to see it. I could close this fissure erupting between us with a few words. But people had died. Will's stunned face poured gasoline on the fire in my heart. My mother's dying breaths fanned the flames sky high.

I step away from him and rapp on the door behind me. "You didn't do nothing, Eric," I whisper. "You took my heart into your hands, told me you cared, and then crushed it under your boot."

The door opens and a wide-eyed Candor girl eyes Eric cautiously. I know that if I look back he will be angry and ready to lash out again. It's what I would expect from someone whose default is to fall back on hatred and malice.

I can't stand to see him cradling his head in his hands instead.


	13. This is Not Where I Belong

**Amazonomachiai: Eris drabble request: any possibility of a hurt/comfort drabble similar to Chap 21 in "Countdown to Christmas?" Eric having an attack of the feelings over Tris being hurt/sick is my Eris #aesthetic.**

* * *

 **This is Not Where I Belong**

My ear smarted from the cut. It hadn't felt real at first and I made the mistake of touching it with my hand. Now the salt from my fingertips aggravated the cut skin. I poked and prodded at it every few minutes, hoping that perhaps now it had stopped bleeding.

"Want a bandage?" I recognized that smug tone anywhere. Turning on my heel, I glared down the young man who essentially put the cut on me.

I crossed my arms and huffed. I'd beaten him at his own game once today. Fear was no longer in my vocabulary. "I would accept, but knowing you it would be soaked in saline and just hurt more," I snapped.

Eric smirked, the motion not reaching his eyes. Yeah, he hated me. At least the feeling was mutual. "Next time I won't bother pretending to give a shit then, initiate," he said, emphasizing my position to further try and make himself feel better.

"That would be best."

* * *

 **But it's Where I Want You**

Spitting blood out from behind my teeth, I twitched as it only made my bloodied tongue hurt more. The sight stilled me for a moment as I watched the glob of body fluids stain the mat beneath me. My arms ached. My sides burned. It would be so easy to give up.

"Stop playing with each other," Eric ordered. It threw me back to my past failure, and the burn in my gut was stronger than the desire to concede. I rallied and forced myself back onto my feet, charging low and fast at my sparring partner's center of gravity. My elbow slammed into his gut, and I had an opening to hook my leg around his ankle. We both went down, but I had enough momentum to spring back up.

The balance of the fight shifted and I emerged the winner. I clasped Carlisle's hand once he shook the daze from his head. Training continued on as my regiment squared off against one another. Settling down on the floor, I watched with limited focus. My tongue still hurt from where I'd bitten it.

"You've got something on your face." I smiled ruefully and twisted my head to look up at Eric. He surprised me by crouching to my level. He dug around in a pocket and pulled out a bandana. "May I?" he asked.

I acquiesced and tried my best not to flush _terribly_ red as he wiped the drying blood off of my lips and chin. "You didn't need to do that," I grumbled, looking definitively at the concrete floor.

He replied, "I can leave if you'd rather."

"Please don't."


	14. Calling in Backup

**Oichealainn prompted: I'm in the mood for something fluffy after reading that super angsty thing you wrote earlier, so maybe Tris seeing Eric looking after a bunch of the little kids and he's covered in glitter or something and basically it's adorable?**

* * *

 **Calling in Backup**

Monday morning was a blur to me. Richards cracked jokes initially but directed most of the kid's attention onto himself when he realized that I really had only scored two hours of actual sleep. The night out with Eric had been fantastic but I was paying dearly for it.

Lunch wrapped up and we broke out into sessions again. I heard whistles calling out from way down the boardwalk not twenty minutes into card-making with the youngest batch of dependents. "I'm not going to be any help," I admitted begrudgingly to Richards. He shot off in the direction of the summons, leaving me to manage all ten squirming, paste-covered children.

"What's goin' on?" Shawn asked, his honey eyes blinking innocently. It was probably an injury and I told him as such. It didn't discourage him from continuing to ask if they were going to be okay, if Richy was going to come back, or any other such question that came to his mind. My patience was wearing dangerously thin.

I flagged down the first patrolling counselor I spotted and breathed a sigh of relief when it was Eric. He jogged over, whistle bouncing. "What's up? Where's Richards?" he pressed.

"Being the hero and helping with whatever went wrong at field sports," I answered. Guiding him with one hand, I stepped away from the craft table and the prying ears of over-attentive dependents. "Please help. I'm going to die if I repress one more sarcastic comment," I whispered.

He squeezed my side in a one-armed embrace before turning back to the table. Naturally, all twenty bright eyes were on the two of us. "Ooooo," Shawn cooed - as only seven year olds can. "Eric's got a girrrlfrienddd!"

Eric rushed at the table eliciting screams of joy all around. He managed to grab one of Shawn's friends who didn't move fast enough and tossed him into the air, catching him safely. Rain laughed hysterically and begged for Eric to do it again, do it again please.

I sighed in relief as their focus shot entirely to him. It wasn't my head getting glitter dumped onto it.


	15. Lethality

**Cssardonic prompted: Eric teaches Tris how to use a crossbow**

* * *

 **Lethality**

Going into the gymnasium, I feel butterflies kicking up a storm in my gut. It's the first time that I've been invited into this particular training room. Reserved solely for those in Leadership, it's in better shape than the general rooms that I've checked out to work out in with my squad. There's still the lingering smell of iron and disinfectant, but the floor and surfaces don't have old rust-colored stains. The people here follow through with the clean-up routines.

I've beaten Eric here and I'm thankful that no one is there to question why I am encroaching on this space. It gives me time to walk over to the empty target practice panels and clip in a new foam disk. The familiar routine soothes my nerves, but the feeling doesn't last long.

My… friend? Trainer? - _Eric_ walks in with the crossbow on his shoulder and a smug grin on his face, though the grin doesn't appear until he's spotted me standing by the firing line. "Why am I not surprised that you're here early, Prior," he chuckles. "Or were you hoping to show up and then run before I got here?"

"You're just not used to anyone wanting to train with you," I shot in reply. "It's fine, we'll get you some friends eventually."

He sidles up right to where I am, dropping a bag of bolts on the table next to us. "I've got you now. Why do I need anyone else?"

The banter is familiar. He needles me. I jab him right back. It's all good fun.

Our bantering takes on a layer of _heat_ when being purred at close range, so close that I can hear his teeth click when he clenches his jaw. The best way to be shown the subtle changes to my crossbow stance is to have his hips behind mine and arms reaching around my torso.

"You want to breathe normally. Tensing up will just make it hurt," he murmurs just before my bolt slams into the very edge of the target. The recoil hurts my shoulder, too, which only adds actual injury to the metaphorical one.

When I turn my head to tell him to back off, the words die in my throat. I have to look up with just my eyes because if I move my head another inch I'll be just that much closer to his… face. Eric raises his pierced eyebrow and leans to rest his arm on my shoulders instead of hovering under mine. "Do you want me to show you again?" he asks.

He's so smug about it, how I keep messing up and needing his touches to fix things. His hands guide my stance and his knee nudges my legs into the right position. There's a marked temperature difference from when I first entered the gym to the air around us now. There has to be.


	16. A Proposition

**Anonymous prompted: I wish you would write a fic where... Eric proposes to Tris in an unusual way!**

* * *

 **A Proposition**

"Did you hear the news?" If I could erase a question from existence, I think that today I would obliterate that one. It's just vague enough that the first time you hear it, you have to think and wonder, _did I?_ The fourth or fifth time that someone asked, you just wished that they were fucking straightforward and asked what they so clearly wanted to.

The smile that I plastered on my face is just blithe enough that maybe someone wouldn't mistake me for mentally sharpening knives. "I heard about Four and Christina, if that's what you mean," I breathed. Patty nodded earnestly with that relieved-but-a-little-disappointed look. She had been _so_ ready to be the one to break the news that my ex and my friend were now engaged.

God, all that I had wanted was to get a good cup of coffee before my evening shift monitoring the motorpool. At least there… well even there I probably wouldn't be able to escape the rumor mill. The trucks just make people shout in order to gossip.

"How does that feel? I mean, they-" Patty started to launch into inquisition mode. Oh no, no.

I cleared my throat and tipped my head. "They're happy with each other. Christina had actually mentioned thinking he was going to pop the question before winter got underway. So I was already expecting it," I said.

Patty's eyebrows leapt into the stratosphere, but thankfully by then she'd filled my thermos. I gave her a quick farewell and swept out of the shop. She was a great person to talk to about emotional problems. I just didn't want to put the energy into caring. That would just validate all the knowing glances and questions that people were peppering me with.

I was right about the motorpool being just as annoying as the rest of the compound. Richards wasn't even on tonight in either department, so I didn't even have my usual buffer. At least I could shut myself into the office and sulk with my coffee. There my only interactions were when mechanics slapped forms into the inbox and drivers chucked keys into the bins.

I perked up when a much more welcomed face popped up in the diamond-webbed glass of the office door. Eric sometimes came down during the "lunch break" lull of the night shift, if he was conscious enough to navigate the walkways. He had a bagel - toasted _and_ with the good cream cheese - and a kiss on the cheek for me.

"There weren't any of the monterey jack ones, but Jesse gave you the cream cheese on the house," he murmured as he sank into a folding chair. I'd made a deal to swap it with a small filing cabinet that made more sense to be in the mechanics' nook anyway.

"The kiss from Jesse, too?" I teased. Joking aside, I was starving. I tore open the foil wrapper and scarfed down the top half as quickly as I could chew.

Eric laughed and rested his head on his knuckles. He was barely keeping his eyes open, the poor guy. "You should be upstairs asleep," I said with a mouth full of bagel.

"Soon," he grunted. "Wanted to check in on you."

"I'm fine. Hungry and waiting for Wednesday," I insisted. I was slowing down with my eating now, hunting for my thermos again to wet my throat.

Eric grunted in assent. Our days off lined up, which made up for the utter frustration of our shifts _not_. Not that Eric truly got days off, even. I was afforded that luxury while I waited for the next round of Leadership training to kick off. Till then I bided my time with lower level management. It suited me.

"What do you want to do then?" I asked. "We talked about grabbing a truck out for a change on scenery and then never did it."

"Don't care. You should pick though. You're gonna be so annoyed by then," he said. Of course he'd heard the news, too.

I crumbled up the foil and slammed it into the waste bin next to the desk just to have something to do. "I'm already annoyed and it's been like a _day_ ," I growled.

Eric peeled open one eye and squinted at me. "People being dicks?" he asked.

"People being dicks," I echoed. "Everybody's just like 'oh Tris, did you hear? What's that like? Are you invited?' Like, hell if I even care. I _don't_ ," I insisted when he opened his other eye to give me a look. "I don't."

Exhaling slowly, Eric stretched languidly. "I mean, I know you don't care about the invitation crap, but we both know you care a little bit that she's marrying _him_ ," he reasoned.

I glared at the ceiling rather than voice my protest. Eric was right, of course. "They've only been together, what, eight months?" I said.

"Something like that."

We sat in silence for several minutes. I drank my coffee. Eric alternated between poking through the outbox of forms - he'd take them with him if he was stopping by his office before bed - and doodling on my sticky notes.

"We could do it, you know," he muttered. I looked at him over my thermos. Eric met my eyes and said, "Get married."

"Married." I chewed on my lip, hating the gravity that the word held. We'd never really spoken about it, not directly. He'd laugh about how his parents wouldn't go to a traitor's wedding. I sometimes praised Dauntless for not requiring it before people lived together. Neither of us ever said whether we thought we needed it.

Eric leaned forward and tapped my knee. "Wouldn't that get his goat? Cause you know they're gonna go traditional. Take months to plan. Have an actual invite list and requisition flowers," he mused.

My heart didn't flutter, but I felt my stomach lurch. He was asking. Eric was actually asking.

"D'you wanna get married to spite them?"

I felt my mouth widen into an uncontrolled grin. My hand clasped over my heart. "Do I want to be a complete dick and take away from their fairytale engagement? By marrying the guy that both of 'em hate but have to put up with if they want to pretend to be as righteous as they claim?" I asked. "Of course I do."


	17. A Transfer by Any Other Name

**Lysore prompted: The name changing thing felt really important in the books so maybe you could do something where Tris tells Eric (or someone else, the BFF with Richards in chapter 2 was very nice to read) that if he wants to, he can also call her Beatrice? Because the use of her full name is a gift she allows only to people she feels very close to?**

 **So I have a lot of thoughts on names and their importance in the Divergent!verse. I altered the prompt but got the blessing of the prompter in the end ;)**

* * *

 **A Transfer by Any Other Name**

I chewed on a bit of jerky as I scrolled through the list of Initiates this year. It had fallen on my shoulders as the newest in the office and therefore lowest on the totem pole. I had to file all the appropriate paperwork for our newest tentative members, and I began to understand why Eric complained about it.

Medical files had been forwarded to our office at random intervals. Some included previous family histories making the computer in my office whir painfully loudly as it downloaded every byte. Two had come by courier in paper form, forcing me to transcribe them over digitally. Still others were single files with a birth date and some innoculations listed alphabetically without any other date listed. It was my responsibility to take all of this information and file it away with our new Initiates.

What made it even more complicated was the fact that everything I received was by prior name. Part of my job was to _also_ reassign files to the initiate's new name - if they'd taken one. Annabelle Williams now went by the far less farm-girl sounding Anne Wills. Craig Jetson got rid of his entire first name and had decided to be called Jet. There was a whole separate form for those who were forgoing a family name, for the sake of maintaining the family record. One that I was entirely out of.

I rolled my chair out from the bullpen to coast up to Kyle's desk. "How's my favorite ex-officemate?" I asked. Now that I was out of training, ironically I lost the tiny scrap of office space that I and the other trainee's had shared with him. Not that any of them had used the space anyways, but that was probably their own fault for not taking advantage of an actual door that shut.

The dark haired secretary twisted his head to look at me. "I don't have any more of those soft caramels, so you can stop that right off, Prior," he drawled.

"Ouch," I breathed, pressing a hand over my heart. "I'm Prior today? Not even Tris?"

"You're doing paperwork which means in about three hours _I'm_ going to be doing paperwork auditing," he sighed. "That makes you Prior today. Especially since it's shitty Candor legal-ese papers."

He had me there. "I would offer to help-" I started to say, but he'd already started waving the suggestion away. "I know, I know. It's auditing and you can't audit yourself."

"Get your pretty blonde boyfriend to help and maybe you can be Tris again," Kyle teased.

I leaned on his desk and tipped my head to mirror how his was propped on one palm. "If I get him to do the auditing instead of you, can I be Beatrice?"

Kyle blinked twice in rapid succession. "Why would you want to be an old Abnegation grandmother?"

"That's my name. Beatrice. Tris is just a nickname," I answered. "I just… People I'm close to can call me that without it being weird? I thought I'd told Rich awhile ago. Figured he would have mentioned it by now." I'd thrown him off of his game. Normally that would have made me crack a smile in pride. Something in how his eyes were darting over my face now unsettled me.

I asked for the name change form I needed and rolled away before he had the chance to be any weirder. The nagging feeling stuck in the back of my head any time that I looked up from my work for a break.

Staring at Jet's paperwork made me realize something that I hadn't considered before. What was my name, according to Dauntless' records? Was I still Beatrice Prior, like I'd thought?

A few clicks in the program I was logged into brought me out of this year's initiate directory. The folder from two years earlier held my initiate class. I scrolled past Al's files as quickly as possible in an effort to keep the tall boy in my head where he belonged. My name didn't crop up next, and it wasn't until I'd passed Peter that I spotted my name.

 _Tris Prior_.

My stomach flipped slightly. Seeing it there in green text was more impactful than hearing it every day. I drew up a new name change form and began to fill in the lines with my information.

My hand stilled as I hovered over the NEW NAME line. Ink welled at the tip of my pen, threatening to stain the page. Four had said back on the day of the Choosing ceremony that if I changed my name, it would be my only chance. It wasn't true; I was holding the evidence in my hand now.

 _Drip._

I had said Tris and it hadn't been the impulsive decision made in a rush of endorphins. I'd chewed over what it would be like to walk away from an Abnegation name like Beatrice before to drive back the slow boredom of service work.

 _Drip._

It was reflexive to respond to Tris now, to embrace the girl that I'd decided on being when I fell down that pit.

 _Drip-drip._

The line was ruined, ink running in chaotic patterns as it soaked into the fibers of the paper. I chucked the busted pen into the garbage. Next came the form, folded into quarters to be slid into paper recycling.

Later, when I was tucked under Eric's arm and sitting on Richards' couch, I found another spot of ink on my hand. I rubbed at it fruitlessly before sighing. "Hey Tris?" Kyle called from behind me. "Can I get a hand bringing in this cooler? My arms are about to fall off."

I wriggled out from under my boyfriend's arm, a smile back on my face. "So I'm back to Tris?" I teased. The cooler was stuck in the doorway as Kyle tried to fit himself and the plastic behemoth in at the same time. He rolled his eyes and nearly dropped the cooler on me.

"Keep it up or you'll be down to 'hey blonde girl,'" he groaned. It was an empty threat and I laughed instead.

"As long as it's not Grandma, I'll be OK," I said, hefting the cooler on top of their small kitchenette table.

Kyle threw himself onto a chair, his arms dangling comicly. "Can Gramma Bea get me a beer?"

I dug through the ice to find the stout that he drank. He popped it open on the edge of the table. We'd had conversations about how that would never happen on my furniture, but I had no control over how he treated his own stuff. "I actually thought about it," I said quietly. "Looking it up, I was going to change my name back to Beatrice. But I couldn't do it. I'd rather leave that name in the past, with my family."

He paused partway through a long draw to study me once more. Then, he nodded, apparently satisfied with what he saw this time. "Good," he grunted. "But I'll miss the new nickname ammunition. I already had a plan for a bit of black and yellow modelling clay to cover your desk in tiny bees."

* * *

 **A/N: This is the end of what I've got already written / posted elsewhere. Reminder that you can submit additional ideas in the reviews below or on my blog.**

 **Also FYI I'm going to be fairly inaccessible until Dec 1st as I'm rushing through 25k of writing in 5 days for NaNoWriMo. Woot! When I'm back, I'll try to bring some more drabbles and chapter updates with me. Prove It is on the docket for a December/January update along with whatever I end up writing for the Eris holiday event. More details on that available on the Dauntlessly-Eris tumblr.**


	18. Acceptance

**Lysore prompted: Tris took to heart Eric's "You chose us. Now we have to choose you" and waited until she had been chosen back by the Faction (= passing Initiation) to get a tattoo of the Dauntless symbol.**

* * *

 **Acceptance**

A thin rectangle sat in my pocket for the final week of Initiation. While waiting for my turn to run through Lauren's Fear Landscape, I ran my fingers over the edges. The corners warped first followed by a crease down the middle from when I switched to shorts with tiny pockets for one lingering hot day. The card flopped open along the worn line whenever I took it out of my pocket to stare at the quickly scrawled appointment time.

Sunday, 7pm. Tori had raised an eyebrow when I came in to schedule it. Her chair was open in the afternoon all week; why bother pushing off the appointment until after the final test? She hadn't said it aloud, but I knew that Tori had been thinking what I was. If I didn't make the final cut then I would only have my crows to keep me company with the other Factionless. If I wanted to seize every advantage of the faction I was trying to join, I should have been jumping at the chance.

Still, that wasn't the point. If I didn't make it then I didn't deserve to wear the mark of Dauntless. I knew from the start of stage two that I wanted the Dauntless flames on my body. Maybe it was cliche, maybe a hundred other men and women had the same design, but that was the point, wasn't it? To show that I was a part of the whole. But to get the ink I needed to have earned it with my blood, sweat, and tears.

I curled my fingers around the card, adding another flaw to the cardstock. Watching my friends and enemies leave me one by one, I knew that my destiny was inching closer minute by minute. I wouldn't let myself fail. I had an appointment tomorrow.


	19. Caretaker

**Rosalie prompted:** **I'd really love to read one about Eric having to look after Richards' cat and Tris discovering he secretly loves it.**

 **Fun fact: this title was originally the one I selected for the drabble I wrote that turned into Sentry. It works a lot better here.**

* * *

 **Caretaker**

Eric came into the apartment with the faded blue cat carrier, holding it as far away from him as he physically could. I considered asking if he needed help, but from the way that Millie was yowling, I'd be better off far away when she was let out. "Calm down," Eric growled. The carrier shook as she darted from one side to another, or tried to at least.

"That's really convincing. She's definitely going to listen to that," I said. He shut the door with the heel of his boot. His other hand was clutching what had to be twenty pounds of litter, and there was an equally stuffed sack of food under his arm. I started feeling bad for not offering to help.

Eric dropped the litter and food unceremoniously and shuffled over to the bathroom door. The carrier went on the floor and Eric cracked the carrier door open. A breath later, he slid the bathroom door closed. Her cries quieted as she no doubt realized that she'd been freed. Eric sighed in relief. "She can't live in there," I warned.

"I just want her to get used to the smells," Eric countered. "I'm not stupid. I know she can't spend all week in the bathroom." He grumbled under his breath as he went to organize the supplies that he'd left by the door.

The yowling began anew as Millie discovered the bathroom wasn't quite as large as she would have liked. I raised an eyebrow. "What do we need to do to cat-proof the apartment?" I asked. Annoying Eric was one thing. Saving our curtains from a scratch-happy cat was another.

* * *

She meowed at everything. If her food bowls weren't freshly topped off, Millie cried. When her water bowl was a few inches to the right. When she couldn't look out the window because Eric was airing out his boots on the sil. Everything was a simple fix, but still, Eric wasn't pleased.

He kicked me awake one morning. "Think Mills locked herself in th' closet," he grumbled into his pillow.

I kicked him back. "Richards asked you to watch her," I retorted.

"He's your friend."

"Same to you."

Eric groaned again and threw the sheets off. He did it on purpose, too, uncovering me in the process.

"Jackass," I hissed, pulling them back around my shoulders. He snorted and left to figure out where Millie was. A minute later, I felt the bed sink as Eric returned. He wasn't flat though, resting against the headboard with his arms crossed over his chest.

I peeled my other eye open. No, not crossed. He was holding the cat, one finger rubbing under her chin.

"She won't stay quiet otherwise," Eric explained, sounding defensive.

* * *

Every time one of us came back to the apartment, there were two bright green eyes staring hopefully from the countertop. She didn't budge for the first few days, choosing to snub us. We weren't Richards or Kyle. By the end of the week though I noticed that she'd jump down and wind her way around Eric's legs.

"Crazy cat," Eric murmured every time. I smirked as he paused to scratch behind her ears. Her purrs reached across the room.


	20. Influenza

**Usernameherepls prompted** : Eric had the flu and Tris had to take care of him.

* * *

 **Influenza**

Eric's main downfall is how he just never knows when to quit. I can tell him a thousand times that things aren't going to go the way he's planned them and he won't listen until everything's seconds from crashing down around him. That's how he lives his entire life from relationships to leading patrols. Sometimes he'll luck out. Other times the consequences are right there with me to help teach him his lesson.

Like the time that he decided that it made sense to ignore the recommendations of those trained in water rescues and jump into the lake himself to save someone who went overboard. I had avoided joining the lake mission to begin with, choosing to remain back at base camp on the shore to man the radio. I had toppled the card table onto Christina and Lynn's laps when the _Intrepid_ called in to notify that "Leader Coulter has gone overboard to rescue Corporal Marques."

The last thing that I _really_ want to be doing is taking care of my idiot partner when he got sick from not waiting thirty seconds for someone in a wetsuit to jump in instead. Alas, the universe is a jerk, and I get stuck doing exactly that.

Eric flops over on the couch, his ninth re-adjustment of the hour. "I don't get why this is taking so long to clear my system," he grumbles. From how stuffed up his nose is, his speech is muffled. I have to count to ten. This isn't the first time he's made the same complaint.

"You jumped into Lake Michigan in January," I retort.

He tries to glare at me but the duvet that's pulled up to his chin takes out any fire there. Yeah, I have sacrificed my own beautifully insulated and downy soft duvet to keep him warm. I'm a softy at heart. "I was doing my job," he insists. "Isn't your job to make me feel better anyways? What's with all the snappy comments?"

I leave my perch on the barstools by the cabinets to come by him. My hands on my hips, I stare down at him. "I get to be as snappy as I want. You're taking up all the couch space. What do you need, oh sick one?" I ask.

His eyes flick to the empty bowl and glass on the coffee table. "S'more stew. And maybe a beer," Eric said. I swear that he even tries to pout, just a little. It's not as endearing as he thinks. Still I collect the dishes and add them to the small pile from breakfast earlier. Dragging them back downstairs to the mess was a hassle. I was going to make Eric bring them all down tomorrow when hopefully the medication would kick in and put him in a better mood.

"It'll take a little bit. You'll be fine while I'm down there?" I call over my shoulder.

His response is muffled by the duvet, and I question whether or not the red tinting his cheeks is from what he said or the fever. "I didn't hear you," I say.

Eric clears his throat. "Can you ask someone to bring up dinner?"

My hand drops from the door handle. "Why's that?" If he's going to be a pain, I'm going to make him explain every demand.

"I just don't want you to go right now," he admits. I weave my way back to the couch, sitting on the coffee table. I don't know if he's contagious or how much space he wants. Better safe than sorry.

He looks just so… overwhelmed by the plush duvet and the redness of his nose. That and the pale yellow which has overtaken his normal complexion gives me further pause from being quite so cruel. I give him a small smile and nod. "I'll see if someone can. But it's coming from a favor you owe them, not me," I tease. I won't actually keep that agreement. He's sick. I can owe Marlene a shift just this once.

Eric matches my smile. "That's fair," he sighs. "I'll pay the Prior Tax."

"Prior Tax?"

The duvet shifts. I think he tried to lift a shoulder casually. "You know. The cost of good company. Prior Tax, Coulter Tax," he says.

I laugh and shake my head. "I didn't realize could have been charging people for my company. I should have been paying closer attention. Coulda been raking in a fortune."

He flails around on the couch for a minute until he's squished up against the back. A hand pops out from the blanket to pat the tiny strip of exposed cushion. "Sit with me? You're so far away," Eric asks.

"Sorry," I say honestly. "The last thing I want is to be sick as a dog with you." I do scoot the coffee table closer, though, so that he doesn't have to talk louder than a murmur. His throat has been killing him.

"M'kay," he grumbles. "See if I offer you couch space in the future."


	21. Simplify

**A/N:** **For Nimadge.**

 **Thank you for being amazing and even more so thanks for giving me a bright spot during all the hectic busy-ness of moving.**

 **I loved getting to cover this prompt. I hope you enjoy how it all came together. I know you just had all your exams, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't just 100% studying anxiety all over again ^^**

* * *

 _ **How about Eric and Tris, relationship OR good working relationship with the possibility of more at least; she sees HIM studying something for once (for qualification exam or smth) and can help? How would that go?** _

**_Made me think abt how Eric would take help/how harsh he is on himself, that sort of thing. We never see him learning anything, after all_**

* * *

 **Simplify**

"Do you need anything?"

Such a simple question. I looked up from my piles of notes and the guide book I was currently attempting to force into perfect recall. Seeing Tris there, a small smile tucked behind her lips, tempered the irritation that had been building all afternoon. There was a lot there bubbling under the surface.

"I know you work best alone, but if you need anything - a drink, something from the caf - just let me know," she said.

I did my best to wrangle my expression into a smile. Her offer made it easy. It was well past the end of her shift. Tris didn't need to be hanging around Leadership on her off hours. It meant all the more to me that she had.

"Thanks," I replied simply.

Tris kissed her fingertips, pressing the two of them to my nameplate on the door. "I'm down the hall with Kyle," she said before departing.

I felt my face fall as she turned and walked away. There was nothing I'd like more than to have gotten up and followed her. Instead, I sighed and flipped to the next blank page to take more notes. Committing to memory the new SOPs for calls had been easier than this drivel.

Qualifications - or quals - were the bane of my existence. And as Leader I was expected to stay ahead of as many of them as I could. At least we got to spread them out between Leaders. Between us, we had to understand what the Faction was capable of.

Sharp shooting and marksmanship quals were a favorite of mine and many of my fellows. They were straightforward; a combination of muscle memory and specific math formulas let you pass with flying colors usually. I'd been happy with the other quals I'd passed over the past two years.

Then the dust-up in Leadership had changed things. Not to speak ill of the very necessary changes that took place, it was a total pain in the ass to have to cover for the things that Max and the others had learned over the years. I'd fought tooth and nail to remain in place, accepting as earnestly as possible my culpability for letting… _everything_ happen without question. That meant not complaining about covering two quals at once.

So, here I was in my office trying to convince my tired brain that learning every in and out of neurochemistry was a reasonable use of my time and efforts. I'd avoided the quals for fear testing initially because _dammit I'd left Erudite to get_ away _from reading academic texts._

Fate has a funny way of ignoring what we want in life.

I ran my hands through my hair and flipped to the next chapter. There were still a few more hours until I had time to sleep.

* * *

Every time that I blinked now I could swear I saw the diagrams from my notes on the insides of my eyelids. Fuck, that would have made things a lot easier if they _were_ there. Instead I stared at the practice test question in front of me and fumed.

 _Describe the basic concepts behind the signals used to target the amygdala._

My pen tapped a staccato rhythm on my knee. I wanted to snap it in half. This was the first long form answer I was expected to answer. I had _known_ it was going to come up.

The amygdala was only part of the brain triggered by the fear serum. There was also the thalamus and… and… Well, there were more. More that didn't matter for this question. But all I could think about now was the damn sensory thalamus. Emotional stimulus - that was the first part of the series of triggers in the process - leading to further systemic triggers.

"That's what it's fucking asking, you idiot," I growled to myself. "What are those triggers in the fuckin' amygdala." Still, no matter how long I stared at my measly four word reply, the less I could recall about the process. It didn't matter how the synaptic sequence depended on a particular balance of ion channels, either, but that was what my mind decided to offer up next.

 _The process begins with_

 _The process begins with_

 _The process begins with_ \- with what?

I flipped back to the earlier questions. I had more 'return to answer' arrows on each page than I'd remembered making. On the question asking to order the sequence of signals used by the serum I'd only marked off the first and last steps. Blank spaces stared at me unhelpfully, offering no insight into whether or not it was a neurotransmitter dump or an artificial channel blocker that could have been used in the amygdala.

My pen went across the room. This was absolutely ridiculous.

Next to me, Tris finally stirred. She screwed up her eyes against the light from my side lamp, but she sat up. "You're still taking that thing?" she murmured. "What time is it?"

"Late," I said. I ignored her first question; I'd blown way past my initial expectation of how long this stupid practice test was going to take.

She rubbed at her eyes and leaned heavily on the headboard. "You need to take a break," Tris said simply.

I looked down at all the little black arrows on the pages and those stupid, _stupid_ four words with nothing after them. "I can't. I'm not done yet," I replied.

"It's- that can't be right. It's four am?" she said. She'd caught a glimpse of the alarm clock down by the foot of the bed. It was there so we couldn't just slam the snooze button without moving. I'd been selectively ignoring it all evening. Well, morning now.

I sighed. Tris shifted again next to me, returning to rest her head on the pillow. She still faced me now. One hand emerged from the blanket again so she could run the side of her finger down my arm. She could only reach so far before starting back down again.

"You're going to be exhausted," Tris murmured. "Can you ask Lauren for her answers from this one? To study from?"

"Mm. Maybe." Lauren had passed this qual the winter after her Initiation. She'd only had a few weeks to study for it. Had only _needed_ a few weeks to. I'd been working on this every god damn night and weekend for the past three months.

And I still couldn't answer a fucking obvious, critical question.

"Hey, hey," Tris said. I looked down at my hands. I'd crumpled the pages in front of me between white knuckled fists. Tris' hand wrapped around my wrist. It was the best she could manage from her angle. "It's going to be alright," she insisted.

"It will be when this is over," I hissed. "If I pass." Good fucking god, there were only three days left. Two nights of studying, really. I'd only have a few hours on the morning of to try and force any more info into recall.

I laughed bitterly. "I might not pass," I repeated. "Wouldn't that be rich? Paid so much attention to the fear sims, and I can't explain them worth a damn for these stupid quals. Fear is what gets you kicked out of Dauntless. Never thought that'd be me, but here we are."

Tris threw the blanket off. It took most of my papers with it, crumpled pages spilling everywhere at the foot of the bed. She sat up fully. Forced me to look at her instead.

"Eric," she said, "what would you tell me if I was doing this?"

It wouldn't work. I crossed my arms over my chest and scoffed. "Usually your problem is that you're overreacting. And I'm not," I insisted.

"Bullshit," Tris retorted. I scoffed again. She wasn't the one unable to answer a goddamn multiple choice question on what should have been a mid-level biology question.

She mirrored my crossed arms. "Bull. Shit. You're overreacting and stressing about not knowing shit. So you're just getting more and more stressed as you get more and more stuff not quite right," she said.

"Not quite right is wrong. And wrong means failing quals," I spat.

I don't know if she heard the nerves in my voice then or if she just had to think another minute for a new plan of attack, but after a moment she said, "You have two more full days."

 _Two days._ My stomach flipped and I snapped my eyes shut. "Don't remind me."

She didn't quit. "You have two more _full_ days," Tris insisted. "That's plenty of time. You've got the core information down; you have to by now after all this cramming and all these weekends buried in that book. It's just perfecting recall."

I made a noise. I felt her prodding at my knees until I relented and stretched my legs back out on the mattress. Tris dropped onto my lap with all the grace of a newborn foal - all legs and flailing hooves, sorry, _palms_. I opened one eye as she wrapped her arms loosely around my neck.

"I'm not moving these," I muttered, wiggling one arm.

"Sure you're not," she replied. Resting her forehead on mine, she forced me to look at her.

Her voice got soft. "I know you're stressed. And you've every right to be worried about the test. They're fucking _hard_ ," she said. I almost laughed. _Almost._

Tris continued on. One of her thumbs stroked along the skin of my neck. "But I'm here to tell you: you're going to be okay. It's all going to be fine. Two days is plenty of time. I know it will be," she said quietly.

I closed my eyes again. Nodding my head, I hummed in acknowledgement. "Mkay," I said. I pressed a kiss to her lips. Saying thank you seemed like not enough. I did it anyways.

"You don't need to thank me. Like I said, if you need anything you just have to ask me," she murmured. We shifted together and she moved to lay on top of me. I had to kick to get the blanket back up to us. That sleepy smile returned to her face when I pulled it over her shoulders again.

I looked one last time at the pages still down by my feet. Tris poked my side, reading my mind. "Turn off the light," she grunted. "Sleep now. Study later."

Kissing the top of her head, I clicked the lamp off. She snuggled tighter to my chest.

It's the simple things.


	22. Aquatic

**Aquatic**

"What's it like?" I asked Eric. He and I were sitting in the conference room with reports from the last few batches of remedial simulations scattered around. We hadn't really, earnestly flipped through any in the past hour. My nerves were eating me alive. Eric just didn't care for reading reports on a Thursday evening.

He looked up at me, file folder falling into his lap. "Hm? What's what like?" he asked in return.

"The lake. Swimming. What does it feel like when you're not all wrapped up in a simulation?" I'd wanted to ask all week, ever since Melanie put "Aquatics Training" on the board. The question and curiosity rose up from the back of my mind a little more each day as we ticked closer and closer to the assigned training block. Tomorrow was the day. I'd either get to ask now or go to bed with the nerves still rattling around inside me.

Eric exhaled and leaned back in his chair. "I don't remember you having a fear of water," he said with a frown.

I raised my eyebrow. "Ah yes. That tank I nearly drowned in was filled with tapioca pudding. And that ocean one, well, who knows what that was really all about," I replied in a deadpan voice. He deserved to get sassed back as good as he gave.

I waited for a moment, just long enough to extract a suitably pained expression from him, before laughing. "Before you take me too seriously, I _know_ I don't actually have a phobia of drowning. I get that those were about losing control, feeling powerless. Not literally being stuck in a box designed for drowning initiates," I said.

He grumbled under his breath and shook his head. "One of these days, Prior," he said in an empty threat. The file folder landed with a flop on the conference table.

"C'mon. Showing's better than telling," he insisted. I wasn't so quick to chuck my stack of folders aside.

"Oh no," I protested. "It's late. We're just supposed to grab dinner and call it a night." This wasn't how I wanted my curiosity answered. He was supposed to answer the question. That was all. I could just deal with the stomach acrobatics and suffer along with my mates tomorrow if he wasn't going to talk.

Eric stood and tugged the folders out of my hands. I continued to shake my head. He leaned over and pinned me to the chair, his hands resting lightly on the chair back. "Tris," Eric coaxed, "it'll be fun. I don't want all your Dauntless firsts to be just from training sessions."

I leaned my face against his forearm. "You're usually all about training as a point of entry to Dauntless traditions."

He grinned, replying, "You're not wrong. That's why I said 'not all.' There are plenty of things that are best experienced through the wonder of drills. Swimming isn't one of them. C'mon. Grab your suit and meet me at the train platform."

* * *

Our dinner was going to be a late one originally anyways so by the time that we switched trains onto the single outbound track to Amity, the sun was a brilliant orange disk just barely suspended on the horizon. Eric smooth-talked one of the women at the station we landed at into lending us her truck. We arrived at the lake shore just as the stars were starting to show up against the blue-grey sky.

Eric looked over at me after he turned the engine off. "You ready?" he asked.

"Does it matter if I'm not?" I replied dryly. I was already here with my swimsuit on. After all the effort it had taken to get here, I wasn't going to suddenly tell him 'no thanks.' Plus, that wouldn't answer my question.

His grin widened in the orange light of the truck's cab. Eric squeezed my shoulder and hopped out. I followed with significantly less vigor, dragging my feet through the sandy dirt. The beach wasn't quite the white sand perfection that we had in our geographic textbooks, but it was what we had.

Eric tossed our towels to the side and pulled his shirt off. _Mmm._ There was at least one immediate benefit of putting up with him dragging me out here. He cocked an eyebrow and started walking backwards into the water, kicking off his shoes as he went. "C'mon, Prior. It'll only get harder to get in the longer you wait," he taunted.

"Isn't that the opposite of how it normally works?" I shot in return. "Y'know. You said harder and waiting." He rolled his eyes, refusing to even give me a half-hearted chuckle. I shucked my tank top and unlaced my boots. We'd both have wet swimsuit bottoms heading back to the city. Oh well. Finally there was nothing left to delay the inevitable.

I walked up to the lapping shore, wincing from the occasional sharp rock. Why _couldn't_ we have perfect, sandy shores? My toes curled back as the water rose up to touch them. Eric wasn't kidding. The water was chilly and with the sun well set the air was losing heat fast.

He stood knee-deep in the shallows, his hands on his hips. I sucked in a breath and charged at him. Ice seemed to envelope my feet, my ankles, and my legs. I gasped and kept going, pulling my knees up high to avoid as much contact with the lake as possible. Eric was laughing right up until I slammed into him.

Then we both went down, ass over elbows, into the lake. Eric took the worst of the fall, his body keeping me from going all the way under. He came up with a rush of motion, curses and laughter falling from his lips. "Christ, Tris. That was _cruel!_ " he said, propping himself up on his elbows.

I rested on his chest, elbows tucked tightly in to preserve as much body heat as possible. Now that I was past the initial shock… no, it was still pretty cold. Eric wrapped one arm around me and I leaned into his embrace.

Right before he spun and dunked me full force under the shallow water as well. I shrieked as every inch of me was now miserably covered in lake.

Oh. It was on.

Eric scrambled back to his feet and started off deeper into the lake. I followed as soon as I could see again, rubbing my eyes as I flailed my way into hip then chest and finally neck deep water.

"You're not going to get away with that," I swore.

He turned to face me as he continued to swim backwards away from me. "It seems like I already am," Eric countered.

I stopped when stretching up on my toes could barely keep my chin above water. Eric slowed as well, that all too familiar cocky grin stretched across his face. "You can do it," he said. "Trust yourself."

I didn't. That was the problem. The community pool was one thing - and the deep end had always been too crowded for Caleb and I to really take advantage of growing up. Here there were waves rolling in, making me sputter and backpedal closer to shore again. "I think I'm good here," I said.

Eric slowly made his way back. Probably he didn't trust this to not be a trap, which would have been clever of me. But my revenge plot was on backburner. I settled back where I could put my whole foot down without my mouth getting splashed every few seconds. The lakebed here was squishy, eagerly sucking my toes into its muck. Eric swam next to me and stood on his own feet. He had the height advantage here; the water only came to the middle of his neck tattoo.

"Just try swimming here, then. Roll back and keep yourself afloat with your arms and feet," he countered.

"Easy for you to say," I grumbled.

His head tipped to the side and his grin softened into the one he kept reserved for friends and me. "No, not easy for me to say. I hate aquatics. I sink," Eric said honestly.

"You sink," I replied flatly.

He slid up next to me and wrapped his arms around my side. "Yep," he said. "Like a rock." He pulled us both over, but not enough to dunk me. I immediately had to break loose from his hold and start flailing my legs and arms into something resembling swimming.

"Oi!" I protested. Eric remained unmollified, floating along next to me.

"You're so stubborn. God, I love it," he said with a chuckle. It was difficult to glare at him while I got my swimming in line. After the initial rush of worry I was able to relax. I did know how to swim. Even in the pool - with the bottom safely within reach of my feet - I would swim around just like Eric was now.

"I'm not saying thanks," I grumbled. He came up and pressed a kiss to my temple before darting away. He was heading back to the deeper reaches of the lake shore. "And I'm still going to get you back for dunking me!"

Eric's voice rose up over the evening wind. "You'll have to catch me first."

I took a deep breath and swam after him.

* * *

 **A/N:** **If you'd like to read more aquatics / lake shenanigans, I _highly_ recommend SymbioticDeath's "A Fonte Puro". It's super cute :3 I borrowed a line from it, but her delivery is way, way better than mine. **


End file.
